Last week 11th Hour Racing confirmed their participation in The Ocean Race 2021-2022 with Charlie Enright and Mark Towill co-skippering the project. This actually makes the US team the first officially entered and funded team for this new iteration of the crewed race around the world. On the back of that news Tip & Shaft take stock of the other projects, IMOCAs and the VO65.

Now at just on one year after the launching of Charal, the first of the new-generation IMOCA to be built, in early August Jérémie Beyou won the Fastnet Race sailing with Christopher Pratt. This was his first win on the VPLP design. So, now at a little more than a month and a half before the start of the Transat Jacques Vabre, the pinnacle event of the season, we meet up and take stock of past and future developments of his 60 footer, we talk about the newer boats and the development of his company BeYou Racing.

French based Irish skipper Tom Dolan (Smurfit Kappa) will sail the Tour de Bretagne à la Voile with aspiring young Turkish solo racer Ediz Onen. In the new Figaro Beneteau 3, the Smurfit Kappa skipper had a mixed La Solitaire URGO Le Figaro, showing many bright moments, but was ultimately disappointed to come away with 32nd. Tip & Shaft caught up with Tom in between training sessions with the Lorient group.

With two Ultimes currently in build (Macif and Banque Populaire) and four new Imoca (Charal, Arkéa Paprec and Apivia, already recently launched as well as the new Corum to come), the CDK Technologies yard is on the crest of a wave during this pre-Vendée Globe year. We pressed for the chance to speak with CDK’s managing director, a very discrete Philippe Facque.

When they won the 2019 Tour Voile last weekend in Nice, Team Beijaflore, who are led on the water by skipper Valentin Bellet and on shore by Pierre Mas, fulfilled the primary goal of the project which was set up in late 2016, to win the event within three years. Now, what is next for the team and for the company, more ambitious projects in terms of goals and budgets? Beijaflore also supported the Class40 of William Mathelin-Moreaux on the last Route du Rhum.

Argentine ace Santiago Lange is lining up for his seventh Olympic Games. His was the most remarkable story of the 2016 Rio games, coming back from having a cancer operation at nine months before the Olympics to win an emotional popular gold medal in the Nacra 17 with Cecilia Carranza Saroli. Tip & Shaft caught up with Santi in a breezy Cascais……

It is quite a specific segment of the yachting market but right now it is a dynamic, flourishing niche that is igniting the interest and passions of sailors, and stimulating the appetites of boatbuilders to develop new designs. The phenomenon is now being well served by French based J Composites. In 2018 the team, under Didier Le Moal, which has been building J/Boats udner licence in the Vendée for almost 25 years, alerted the well known Johnstone family, originators of J/Boats to the trend…..